


How Are You Going To Pay For That?

by p_totel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Desperation, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Heroin, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:00:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25272061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p_totel/pseuds/p_totel
Summary: Theon has fallen pretty low. And doing drugs is not cheap. Question is, how low though?
Relationships: Ramsay Bolton/Theon Greyjoy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 34





	How Are You Going To Pay For That?

He found the Greyjoy boy on the dirty floor, giving cockroaches a good run for their money. The scene looked like a slide on powerpoint presentation about effects of drug use in highschool. Like, the one that teachers show at you to teach you to mind the consequences. And no matter how many times you see them, they never accomplished jackshit.

“How the fuck did you get up here?” Ramsay snorted and kicked the thin boy in ribs. Greyjoy immediately gasped for air, suddenly jolting from sleep.

“I- thro- through the window.” he whispered and tried to prop himself up on the elbows. Sleeping on the dusty floor obviously wasn’t a big deal to him. Sure, it might bring sense of shame to some people, but the Ironborn was long past that stage. His blue jacket looked like it was snatched from a random sleeping hobo and not like it used to be an expensive designer garment. Maybe it used to fit with his lovely light brown curls, with a groomed stubble and cheerful smile with rows of white teeth, but now it would only pass for a pitiful second hand find; maybe even third or fourth hand, actually. The attractive face was long gone, now sunken and boney, with a weeks old stubble, dry and rare; the hair was matted and unkept, and the teeth - oh. The teeth. The smile that rang all over the city, sometimes more or less annoying…

Was ruined. Probably forever.

There were missing gaps. A nice part of them were broken or crooked. Overall, Theon Greyjoy looked, mildly put, like a shipwreck survivor stranded at some island in the middle of ocean, with no food, water, or any basic hygiene accessible.

Ramsay kicked him once again and Greyjoy whined.

“Reek, come on. What are you doing here?” he grinned, hands in pockets and a vicious spark in his eyes.

Reek. That was right. Well, it was fitting for sure, since Theon really did  _ reek _ . He felt a bit of embarrassment - really, what was he doing here? - but it passed like a seawave. He desperately sat up.

“I go-got through-thro-u- thr-.” he stuttered and turned his head to the broken window through which he had climbed up.

Ramsay huffed, rolling his eyes in annoyance. “Yeah. I got that. Why are you here?”

Theon shifted on his knees, mouth lightly open. Right. Ramsay had things to do. Unlike Reek. Reek had nothing to do. He shouldn’t waste his time.

So Theon-Reek-whatever at this point, really, summed it all up in one word.

“ _ Please. _ ” he croaked.

“Please. What?” Ramsay crouched down to meet him eye-to-eye. Theon swallowed dryly and averted his eyes.

“I-.”

“I don’t have time for this. So either get yourself together or don’t.” Ramsay huffed and got up, turning around, ready to leave.

“No!” Theon screamed and grabbed on Ramsay’s leg, cementing him in place. “Please. Please, yo-you know, you know-.” he sobbed and buried his face in dark haired man’s jeans.

“Reek. Let go of me. You’re stinking them up.” came an annoyed reply. Still, Bolton turned around to face the pathetic ruin in front of him. “I asked you something, you didn’t reply. What, am I supposed to waste my time here the entire night?”

Theon weakly shook his head and let go of the fabric. Washed. Nice smelling. Something he hadn’t worn in… months?

“Please.” he immediately rolled up the sleeve of his jacket (that was such a monstrous sight it could barely be called one) and put it out. Tiny track marks covered his arm, all over; veins abused more than they ever should be. He shuddered.

“I just.... I want…” he said in despair, “A-a shot. I- please.”

Tears started streaming down his face.

Ramsay huffed, like he was annoyed by some halfwit not understanding concepts of quantum phsyics explained to them  _ twice _ .

“Reek.” he patiently said and started digging through his pockets. At last, a small bag with wide powder shined between his fingers. Theon gasped and shuffled closer, but Ramsay pulled it out of his reach.

“Do you know how much this costs?” he asked, pale blue eyes staring down like two northern lights. Cold and far.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure you _do._ Considering that’s where all your daddy’s inheritance has gone, right?” Ramsay dangled the bag in front of Reek-Theon’s? face. The words stung. For a moment, something like a spark of lucidity buzzed through Theon - a choking embarrassment of how low he has fallen. All his inherited money. Burned between Ramsay’s fingers.

He gave a choked whine - sure, maybe a bit out of regret - but really, more out of worry  _ how _ is he going to pay for it. The white powder dangled in front of him and glossy sea-green eyes followed it religiously.

“How much money do you have, Reek?”

Maybe months ago Theon would’ve spat at him. No - months ago he  _ has  _ spat at him. “ _ Look, dude,” he said when Ramsay sneered at him, “you’re my dealer, not a fucking mate. Don’t call me like that.” _

That was an entire different lifetime. The nickname got more prominent, his bite got duller, in the end he didn’t complain- in the end, well - he  _ couldn’t _ complain. He tried not to watch people move away from him in the street. A woman passing with a child, turning her look at him and scrunching her nose. He was sure he once saw Sansa, somewhere from afar as she frowned and stopped to smell the air around herself as she made a disgusted face. “ _ Can you smell that?”  _ she turned around to her friend and Reek docked down, behind the window of an abandoned apartment he squatted in.

He scrambled, his boney hands flying across his hoodie - a jacket so worn out it looked like a floor rag. He inspected every pocket and in the end found three bucks, a half-spent packet of chewing gums and a overused napkin. He grinned as he put up his wealth, showing his missing teeth.

“That’s all?” Bolton smiled, his voice patient and comforting. It made Reek nod in agreement.

Suddenly there was a heavy kick with a sole of a boot right in his face and he flew down on the floor, air pushing out of his lungs. His mouth went agape as he struggled to breathe in - like a fish on land, thrown to struggle and die. He wheezed and coughed as Bolton picked up the bills that rolled out of his hand.

“Reek, this is… well I mean. It’s, what’s the word?” Ramsay gave a small chuckle. “Tragicomic. Is that it?”

He sighed and threw the bills at Greyjoy who gasped on the dirty floor boards.

“There. Buy yourself a fucking Snickers or something. It’ll be better spent than on this. With that money i can open the bag and let you smell it for a second before closing it again. And not to mention,” he gestured to the window, “you also owe me money for the mess you’ve made.”

The humiliation hit him like a brick.

Tears started to form on edges of Reek’s eyes - once curious and nimble, nowadays - foggy and slow. He shook on the floor. The fish transported from the boat to the ice in front of a market. To be cold and nice for customers.

“Please-.” he sobbed through snot as he tried to lift himself back up on the knees, “please-. Let me- let me owe you- just this- this once-.”

“Oh come on. You already owe me more than enough. I don’t do the whole ‘debt payment’ thing. I would have to do something truly horrid to you if you wouldn’t follow through and…” Ramsay cocked his head, “...you know how  _ dear  _ you are to me, Reek.”

Theon sniffed as the tears came to a halt and he looked up at the man before him, standing tall in his boots, in his washed jeans, in his nice leather jacket and a combed hair. Ramsay still had all of it. Theon’s once wonderful curls had been gone long, thinned and dirty.

Nobody has called him ‘dear’ in a very long time.

“Look, so, since I really don’t want to do this… you’re going to have to pay me now.” Ramsay sighed and placed a warm hand on Reek’s head, feeling the stringy hairs, lovingly, like it was a pet in front of him and not a dirty junkie that slept in piss-stained trousers.

“But- but I don’t-,” Reek whimpered in confusion and, remembering it, turned around quickly to pick up the bills Ramsay dropped at him. He immediately shoved them in his jacket. Just because his donor won’t accept them, doesn’t mean he can’t use them.

“Well I mean.” Ramsay rose the little bag to inspect it in faint sun that shone through the window, “I guess I can save this for you. And you know, in a few days, when you have it ready…” he sighed and shrugged, shoving the bag in the pocket.

“No!” Reek screamed and flung towards the pocket, “No- please! Please, t-t-today, today-.” he repeated in fever as he tried to dig it out. Too messy to actually do it, he suddenly retrieved his hands and started unzipping his jacket.

“R-Rams-Ramsay, please-.”

“Oh. We aren’t mates, Reek.”

Theon sobbed. Reek. He once told the same thing to Ramsay - a dirty Bastard he called him even, and now he was kneeling in front of him, more dirt on him than on the sidewalk. He was as useful as it, though. A thing for Bolton to step on.

“M-my lord.” he choked as he continued to take off the hoodie, and then the white shirt - which wasn’t really white anymore - and at last, the zipper. He pulled his dirty jeans off with one swift move. It was easy when your clothes become oversized.

His body was a wreck.

He could easily pass for a scaring prop in a scare house, boney and sunken as he was. A perfect skeleton. Or a zombie. A grotesque display for anyone sane to scream and turn away as he stared at them, the eyes pleading for a release. For the needle.

But Ramsay wasn’t turning away.

He drank the entire sight in - Greyjoy’s ribs on full display; once obscured by toned muscle, now an eye-protruding sight. Bruised and kind of blue. Pale. That Ironborn tan had disappeared long time ago as his body gave up. It was a battlefield mess of scars and cuts, with one nipple missing.

Greyjoy didn’t even remember half of those, many of them happening during him begging for a shot, stress clouding his judgement, or when he was high; compliant and somewhere far away, thinking he was in a dream.

He didn’t really wonder either because there were too many to count. Who could even point at the sources, anyway? Was it Ramsay? His Boys? Rats in his apartment? Some hobo that wanted the two dollars in his wallet? Maybe it was... him. Scratching at his flesh while the need for the drug grew in him, making his skin crawl as if ants were making tunnels through his arms.

Now completely naked, he spread legs, trembling like a branch in the wind.

Ramsay simply smiled.

“...And what am I supposed to do with this?” he asked dully.

Reek opened his mouth slightly. He didn’t get that far in his head. He thought it would be pretty clear what he was offering.

“W-w-well- I- you can have me.” he choked. And then quickly added: “Ins-instead of money.”

The laugh that followed was a mean one. Evil, reeling in fallen man’s misery. Laugh of a sadistic child watching a cockroach try to roll over from his back.

“Oh, look at you. Amazing! Is this how low you’ve fallen?” Bolton giggled and brought a hand to his mouth, like a schoolboy trying to stop with breath-wrenching laughter in the middle of a class.

“Theon Greyjoy.” he stilled himself, a cold smirk dancing on his lips. “First he spent all the money on what, heroin? And now he’s  _ prostituting  _ himself. What would your daddy think?” he lightly kicked Theon’s legs, closing them.

“A proud Ironborn.” Ramsay trailed off. “A respected family- ah, no, no, I don’t mean those Ironborn savages.” he huffed and shook his hand. “I meant Ned Stark. What a lovely man, isn’t he? To see what’s become of the Theon boy. The one who he educated, let grow up with his children, put him through school… And here he wound up. On my floor.”

Theon always thought the Bolton skinned man sigil was literal. He had no doubt it was, really. But he never thought - they didn’t skin only skin from flesh. No. Skinning went further than that. Nobody told him that such barbaric tradition was in their blood - and applicable to every situation. To every aspect of life. Not just to flesh. Not just to flesh.

And that’s how Theon felt, right now. Skinned to the bone, kneeling in front of the Bastard, naked and broken.

And then he gave up the fight.

“Not Theon.” the creature on the floor croaked, his voice hoarse.

“Reek.” he choked and covered his dirty face with two boney hands, lightly sobbing into them. “Reek. ‘M Reek. Not- not Theon.” his sob cracked. He closed his legs and turned into a fetal position, cries starting to wretch his body from toes to head.

“Please.” he whispered once again, snot mixing with grime on his chin. A quiet whisper. A white flag. “Please. J-just. One. One shot. Please.  _ Please. _ ”

Ramsay leaned a bit backwards, a big grin on his face. Wider than the entirety of North.

Grin of a pleased conqueror that watched the enemy surrender at last.

“Come on, Reek.” he crouched down to lightly tap the thin man. “Let’s get you your needle.” he lovingly stroked his naked back, the sobs not stopping.

“And then…” he licked his lips, “And then we can discuss your payment.”

**Author's Note:**

> interestingly, i prefer "my lord" rather than "sir" for proper calls in modern aus. i think with, such strong tradition on lordship, it might stick as a proper title when adressing someone.


End file.
